THE ROAD TO HELL AND BACK (still on my way...) #3 : Loss of Control & Monsters Under My Bed.

----------------------------- WARNING! - NSFEUI (Not safe for emotionally unstable individuals)

Loss Of Control

As the first excitement of losing weight so successfully go by, Commander’s voice is not so loud anymore and you start analyzing. Why are you doing this? People don’t like you more now than you’re thin. They just seem more jealous. And you still have no idea who you are. But boy, you feel good when looking into mirror! Oh yes, that feeling. You fit in all those zero-size clothes. Fuck yeah, you now have the body of “successful people”. Now you just have to remain this weight. So you must be careful not to eat too much. Unfortunately, you’ve completely lost the sense of eating normally.

This next period was maybe the worst time during my battle with anorexia, which explains why I don't have almost no photos of myself. I felt I was nothing,so there was nothing to capture.

Months 5-12

Sometimes you look into mirror and see bones, dry skin, dry hair and still that same face with a different body. Then you start feeling hungry, really hungry and eventually you feel so sick that you could pass out any minute. You sweat at nights, scared of not waking up in the morning anymore. You realize what you’ve done to your body and try to fix it, because hey, who’s in control here? But you are still losing weight because you don’t know how much to eat, what to eat and when to eat. You suddenly realize that you’re out of control and that is scary as fuck. You literally watch and learn from other people eating. So you’ll try it… and feel sick. A pancake is too much, makes you feel nauseous, but still hungry. Then you realize you can’t eat like normal people because your body needs more than normal and at the same time it won’t accept food. And the brain fights hard to allow you to eat at all because for the brain, those calorie-rich foods have become the “enemies”.

Now it’s a roller coaster. Some days you feel you’re going to pass out. Other days you feel you’ve gained weight which makes you really nervous and you skip a meal. Then there’s feeling of guilt for not eating and you compensate it with a huge cake. Then there’s feeling of guilt for eating too much… Then come the sleepless nights when your heart is beating, you can’t breathe and you think you’re about to die.

The mirror is not your friend anymore. You can see now that you’re too thin. No breasts, no butt, all your zero-size clothes are too big.

It seems that no one will skip the opportunity to remind you that you’re soooo skinny. And all the comments about your eating habits cut like a knife at the time you’re giving your best to eat as much as you can. You start to avoid being in public because you see every person judging every aspect of you.

Well, then you start ignoring the comments and just try to function. Which is hard. You redefine the values of life. Finally you start gaining weight again. Of course there are many-many times when you think you’re too fat now and should stop eating so much. But then there are moments again when you feel like fainting when walking up the stairs.

Only thing that made me eat was the fear of dying. And I didn’t want to, I hadn’t proven anything to the world yet.

June 2009. Low point: BMI=14.5

It's interesting that I have very little memories of that period. I have totally forgotten some events that happened, places I used to live and people I used to hang out with at that time. Even if I remember something, it's like from an old movie, although it's not that long ago.

Monsters Under My Bed

Years 2-4

For many years I actually thought it was over by then. I was wrong. Although I started eating more and gaining weight, the voice in my head hadn’t gone anywhere. It only changed its rules, but it was there all the time, judging me and giving new commands. New goal was to maintain that weight at which I didn’t feel too weak anymore (around BMI 16.5) by practicing a “healthy” lifestyle. “Healthy” meant to prioritize foods that are easy to digest, naturally mildly laxative (like fiber rich foods) and limiting all hard-to-digest foods like meat, dairy and big amounts of food in general. “Healthy” lifestyle meant to have fast metabolism so I could eat all I wanted and still stay thin. New rules were about speeding up metabolism.

2011 - Brighter side to all of it is that I learned to play guitar during those years. I spent a lot of the time in rehearsing room.

More than half of rehearsing time I was judged by the mirrors. And all the other times I was judged by my teachers, role models, audience and parents. I’ve spent hours of just standing with my guitar in front of a rehearsing room mirror, measuring fat on my stomach and spotting angles where my instrument would hide it. While playing guitar, I was constantly aware of how the instrument would feel to my body. My playing and self-esteem depended on it. The rule was that the body of the guitar had to touch both of my hip bones. If it did, I thought I played good, I felt worthy.

PART 1: https://steemit.com/health/@joanneblowanne/killing-perfectionism-1-intro-perfection-and-control
PART 2: https://steemit.com/anorexia/@joanneblowanne/the-road-to-hell-and-back-still-on-my-way-2-onset
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PART 4: https://steemit.com/anorexia/@joanneblowanne/the-road-to-hell-and-back-still-on-my-way-4-fat-is-a-feeling